This week in history…
On May 15, 1919 at 11 am, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers walked off the job and essentially brought the City of Winnipeg to a standstill.
The Winnipeg General Strike was a large and difficult defeat in 1919 but benefits workers today.
The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike ended quietly five days after the violent confrontation on Bloody Saturday, with no concessions won by the workers and with many facing a bleak future.
Two men died, thousands of impoverished people lost their jobs, and it would be decades before their sacrifices brought the rewards workers enjoy today.
Though the strike was quashed, the efforts by organized labour to bring attention to workers’ concerns during the walkout were far from lost.
In the face of both repression and depression, Winnipeg workers did not abandon the ideals held out by the general strike.
And they refused to stop raising the banner for reform.
